Chess Fed appoints three GMs as coach

The Bangladesh Chess Federation on Tuesday said it has appointed three Grand Masters –Niaz Murshed, Ziaur Rahman and Enamul Hossain Rajib – as coaches for improving the skills of the players with different norms. Bangladesh have a total of 953 rated male and female chess players including five Grand Masters, three International Masters, two Women International Masters and 20 men’s and women’s Fide Masters.However, the country has failed to produce any GM since Rajib emerged as the fifth one in 2008. As a result, the federation decided to use the huge experience of the trio to find out the next GM and IM. BCF will provide Tk one lakh to each GM as their monthly salary and will renew their contract in every three months.Zia was entrusted with the job of honing the skills of two IMs – Abu Sufian Shakil and Minhazuddin Ahmed Sagar – and three FMs – Mehedi Hasan Parag, Aminul Islam and Sheikh Nasir Ahmed.Rajib is working with a group of FMs and WFM norm holders who have over 2200 rating points while Niaz, the eldest GM of the country, is expected to work with budding talents.BCF general secretary Shahabuddin Shamim said they took the initiative with an eye to find out more GMs and IMs.‘There are a lot of players, who has the opportunity to become FM and IM,’ Shamim told New Age on Tuesday.‘But for the lack of proper guidance, most of them failed to flourish their talent and failed to improve their rating points.‘To find more GMs and IMs, we involved the trio [GMs] to support the players with their vast experiences.’Federation also said they decided to seek financial support from the Bangladesh Cricket Board, the richest sports federation of the country, who has extended their support to some sports federations including Bangladesh Hockey Federation and Bangladesh Swimming Federation.‘We saw BCB came forward to support some other sports federations,’ he said.‘Our president [Benazir Ahmed] will discuss with the BCB president [Nazmul Hasan] shortly to involve them with chess.’